


i would do it all for you

by soislibre



Series: AFTG Bingo 2020 [5]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Eventual Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, it sounds gnarlier than it is???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:28:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26308573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soislibre/pseuds/soislibre
Summary: soulmates are stupid, right?
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: AFTG Bingo 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815703
Comments: 5
Kudos: 148





	i would do it all for you

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [love looks better in colour](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24847762) by [soislibre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soislibre/pseuds/soislibre). 



> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> [title](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIxNIs5GzGY&ab_channel=EpidemicPop)

A soulmark was always something Andrew thought he wouldn’t get. He used to hope he wouldn’t get it, then he realised that was stupid. So he just assumed. That was stupid too, as it turned out.

Andrew’s soulmark is weird. Divided. It’s like his arm brushed against it while it was still wet and some of it transferred. The bulk of it trails its fingers, like so many before and after it, in a line down his right side - from his lowest rib to his hip, and finishing high on his inner thigh. The number of times he’s laughed himself sick over that. It’s way too fucking intimate, even for his ‘soulmate’. The rest hides under his wristband; it’s just a smear of colour on the inside of his forearm, right across a deep, ragged scar.

From the moment he arrives in Palmetto, the only person who sees any of it is Abby. He knows people think he doesn’t have a soulmate, and he likes it that way. If they think that, then he can imagine that it’s the truth. That there’s no one out there for him. If they’re looking for him, he thinks he’ll lose his mind; he doesn’t want to be looked for, and he has enough people to look out for, he doesn’t _need_ another one.

Which is why, when he offers protection to Neil Josten, Andrew spends the night unable to sleep through his withdrawal the way he normally does. He stares at the ceiling in silence until the others are asleep, and then he leaves their room. He goes up. It’s cold outside, and he pulls the sleeves of Kevin’s sweater over his hands as he perches on the edge of the roof, swinging his legs out into empty air just to feel the lurch in his stomach.

He can’t afford this. He can’t afford to be distracted from Kevin. If he breaks his promise, he’s useless. And he refuses to be useless again.

Still, he gave Neil his word. Like a pair of idiots, they made that deal. And now he’s well and truly distracted. Something in the back of his mind reminds him that it’s a sickening amount of trust to put in someone who didn’t even show his real eye colour until Andrew baited him into it. The problem is the medication, he decides. It makes him stupid. Even though he knows it doesn’t really; it does flatten him out, dull his edges and bleach the shadows that always cover him, but it doesn’t make him an idiot. He does that all by himself, apparently, by trusting strangers with too much to hide.

He spends a lot of time on the roof after that night. 

_Neil,_ he concludes, _is just a side effect of his pills._ The reason he trusts Neil is because he’s high as a kite more often than he’s not. He doesn’t care enough to analyse it further, especially when he’s using too much of his energy analysing Neil as is. He doesn’t like feeling like he doesn’t have all the answers, but that’s exactly how he feels with Neil Josten. He’s getting a little less than half the truth and he knows it. So why he offers up that agreement is anyone’s guess, though Andrew has a slightly better idea of a possible explanation than anyone else would.

One thing he doesn’t understand is why Neil doesn’t do better at hiding his mark. It’s not that he’s _bad_ at it - no one else seems to have noticed the mark, because if they had there would 100% be stupid gossip about it - but Andrew sees the flash of pale grey pretty early on. With the ratty t-shirt Neil is wearing, it’s just a couple of twisting ribbons of colour that stretch up over Neil’s sharp collarbones and tail off right in the shadowy dip between them, but still, he sees it. Because he’s feeling particularly snide today, he opens his mouth to say something about it. Neil shoots him a look that’s pure venom, silently daring him to let fall whatever is trembling on the tip of his tongue. For a second, they eye one another; Neil’s gaze cold and mistrustful, Andrew’s bland, as if he can’t see how much Neil _hates_ him. He closes his mouth very deliberately and feels it stretch into a smile that makes Neil flinch. Somehow that’s better than whatever reaction he would have gotten for mentioning the mark.

No one notices the weirdness between him and Neil except Renee. She’s nice enough not to mention it, but Andrew knows she can see it, simply because she knows him that well. She knows how to recognise when his behaviour is different, and how to identify why it’s different. And sure, normally it’s down to his medication, but she isn’t stupid; she sees that Neil is something else. She doesn’t ask Andrew about it, and he’s glad of that. He doesn’t have any answers to give.

* * *

Easthaven isn’t a place Andrew ever thought he’d end up. He never dreamed he’d be like this again. He never thought he’d find himself fighting on the edge of the abyss, his breath loud in his ears as he digs his fingernails in and claws his way back from a panic attack that threatens to drag him down and drown him. He thought those days were long behind him. He’s in his twenties, he has his family, Drake is dead. But when it comes down to it, he’s seven and afraid all over again. He has restraints around his wrists and someone else’s hand on his soulmark, pinching cruelly as Proust tells him the purple isn’t what he thinks it is; biting while Andrew tries not to cry out. The purple of his mark becomes the purple of bruises, bite marks, _panic._

Andrew spends weeks staring at that purple. At the start, he thinks it might be good; it makes him feel defiant. It makes him think maybe whoever his soulmate is, they’re fighting just the way he is, only they’re winning.

By the time he leaves, that purple has twisted and warped in his head. It’s not fight, it’s not resistance or rebellion; it’s sadness and anger. It’s the misery of losing a battle that you didn’t realise you were fighting until it’s too late and all you can do is resign yourself to that. He hates hates _hates_ it. Everytime he looks at it he wants to throw up or yell or strangle someone.

His soulmate (and Andrew has never even _thought_ the word soulmate before) is pathetic. They need help that he can’t give them. Help that he _won’t_ give them.

Andrew can’t help himself in that place; how can he help anyone else?

* * *

When he gets back, everything is, well. 

It’s different. 

Neil is still a weird mystery but Andrew thinks they’re starting to understand each other a little better. They’re at least in a place where Neil is very slowly starting to accept the little help Andrew is willing to give. Andrew is starting to trust Neil. Is it dumb? Maybe.

Neither of them talk about the fact that Neil’s mark is now in brilliant colour. As if his soulmate has woken up from a coma or something.

And Andrew certainly doesn’t think about how much he doesn’t like that.

But he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like that Neil’s soulmate is out there and actually, like, alive. He pictures someone soft, someone sweet; someone the direct opposite of both him and Neil. He’s not sure why. Neil is high walls and dark shadows, Andrew sharp edges and cruel words, and whoever the universe has destined for either of them, it just makes sense in his head that they’re going to be opposites. That it won’t make sense but it’ll just _work_.

He doesn’t think about it that often. He doesn’t want to. If he thinks about it that means he gives a shit, and he fucking _doesn’t._ It’s just a distraction that he now really can’t afford. If he has Kevin _and_ Neil to watch out for, he doesn’t have time to think about how Neil’s eyes thaw when they meet Andrew’s. How the ice in the blue thins just enough for Andrew to see the waters underneath.

Neil Josten is a dick. He’s cagey and untrustworthy and he’s a flight risk, and Andrew wants him. Neil’s soulmate? Can fuck off.

* * *

“So it’s you, then,” Neil says very calmly as Andrew perched on the edge of the roof. He kicks his legs out and relishes in the thrill of terror. Fear of falling is better than fear of rejection.

There have been so many indicators, really. The first time Andrew went down on Neil, and Neil’s skin had been painted a deep pink visible even through his flush. The matching colour on Andrew’s skin when Neil’s fingertips traced very slowly up his spine. The sadness that wasn’t his own on the day he and Neil had spent hours mapping out his boundaries. The misplaced anger painting itself over Neil’s throat when they’d done the same for Neil. It should have made some sense, but he can’t see that right now and he doesn’t think Neil can either. Their harsh edges have started to fit together. Andrew was starting to wonder, but Neil’s stupid mark… That really sealed it. That fucking thing. Every time he looks at the rage painted on Neil’s collarbone it makes him angrier, because it’s fucking betraying the emotions he’s long since learned to hide. It’s betraying _him_ , and, he thinks, that’s probably not a thought people normally have about their soulmarks. 

Neil sits down next to him. Andrew fights the desire to lean forward and fall. That won’t solve anything. Also Neil is shitheaded enough to go after him.

He eyes Neil suspiciously and doesn’t answer, but they both know he doesn’t need to. With a fair amount of hesitance, Neil pulls the collar of his ancient sweater down further to show Andrew his mark. As if Andrew has never seen it before. Andrew glances briefly at it, unimpressed, then turns his head away again. 

“Andrew,” Neil says. He sounds frustrated now, and that’s good. Better than anything changing because of this. “Will you at least look at me?”

This time Andrew rolls his eyes at Neil. “What.”

“Did you already know?” Neil asks him quietly. His fingertips drift up to touch his collarbone, then dance away just as quickly, just as thoughtlessly.

“No.” He hadn’t even thought of wondering. Not even when he could see actual emotions on Neil’s skin. Before then, everything had been so muted, more shades of grey than actual colour. And even now, he has a hard time associating the colours with whatever is raging in his chest. He’s spent so long being dull, blank. He’s not ready to see his shit mirrored on Neil.

“It’s okay.” Neil sounds so calm. He sounds like he’s trying to _calm Andrew down_. Andrew boils over in an instant, his head snapping around as he reaches out to drag Neil in by the collar of his shirt.

“I fucking know that,” he hisses. Neil stares back at him, one eyebrow slightly cocked, and unbidden Andrew’s eyes drop to his half-open mouth and the challenge hidden in the curl of a smirk.

He’s never been one to back down from a challenge.

Neil melts into it. His hands raise, falter, and drop back down to brace himself on the roof as he leans forward. He has one leg tucked under himself, his weight is on that and his palms, and his foot must be going numb but he kisses Andrew like it’s the only thing keeping him alive. Andrew bites his lower lip, because he doesn’t know what else to do when he’s faced with this much all at once. He feels more than hears Neil swear into his mouth, then Neil sweeps his tongue along the line of Andrew’s bottom lip.

His mouth is slick and his lips tingling when they break apart again. Neil looks a little dazed. Andrew would never admit it but he feels pretty much the same as Neil looks. It’s not like their first kiss. Or rather, it feels like it’s their first kiss, but it’s not and it doesn’t feel like their _actual_ first kiss did. He snaps out of it pretty quick when Andrew takes his hands and lifts them to press cold palms against his own cheeks. His body is prickling uncomfortably, but he sits with that feeling until it starts to simmer down. This is Neil. Neil is okay. Andrew trusts Neil. And Neil doesn’t break that trust, he just sits and lets his thumbs slide very gently along Andrew’s cheekbones until Andrew gets fidgety and drags him in again. 

* * *

Neil is bloodied and bruised, his face is twisted in pain, but when he reaches for Andrew, the world is gone and the only thing he sees is Neil. The stupid idiot who disappeared, who painted his skin every shade of moron under the sun. The one who slipped under that skin so easily it was like he’d always been there. In a sense he always had been. Andrew’s wristbands slip when he wraps Neil up in a tight hug. His wrist is bright blue, like an empty sky on a warm day. It makes him all the more grateful to see that even after everything, Neil’s first emotion when he sees Andrew is hope. He thinks maybe this time it’s hope that it’ll stick. That Neil’s name will stick, his life will stick. He’ll be Neil Josten and Neil Josten will be with Andrew Minyard forever. 

And through the rips in Neil’s tatty shirt, he sees a flash of matching sky blue. 

_Stupid,_ he thinks as he tucks his chin into the crook of Neil’s shoulder. 

**Author's Note:**

> [i am very tired](https://https://jeanmoreaun.tumblr.com/)


End file.
